Ten.Eighty-Two
1. I am not getting used to this darkness.
2. He coughed all night and so all of us are tired.
3. Warm water with lemon while I make the lunches. 3 lunches and 3 snacks. I try to remember that is my way of loving.
4. I think back to newsletter I wrote last night and how I said that it's all the ways in which we do our living and loving is our art. Making lunches is my art.
5. I yell at them while we're trying to get out the door for school. I had been so proud of myself for having maintained my cool since returning from Squam. Maybe my zen has worn off. But really, why is he rollerblading in the driveway when it's time to go?
6. We talk for two hours about life and our work together. I'm so energized by her. She casts one more line about France before we sign off.
7. Lunch at Turf Room. We drink a glass of Pinot Blanc and sip lobster bisque on the hottest day of September. I commit to dessert—gooey root beer cookies with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream—and coffee because life is short.
8. The heat.
9. Chianti with dinner.
10. In the shower I think of Fever Dreams Collective and orange trees; the lake and the garden and the fountain; the succulents and labyrinth; the women who have already stepped in and the ones we're calling forward. The water isn't hot enough. The three of them took showers tonight, one right after the other.
Ten.Eighty-One
1. I sleep in again, just a little bit. It's so dark.
2. I go downstairs to find the table littered with glasses. I must have forgotten to pick them up.
2. A full pot of coffee today even though I know I won't drink very much of it. It's Tuesday and that means I meet with my mom's group, make the drive right after I take the kids to school.
3. Yellow leaves, red leaves, brown leaves. There is still a coolness in the air at this time of morning that hints to fall. I think of the small velvet pumpkins still sitting in a plastic bag in my bedroom.
4. We talk a little about patriarchy and the way it quietly seeps into sacred places.
5. I offer each of them a brass cross. When I dump them into my hand, I feel the weight and temperature of the metal, flash back to the screened in porches.
6. I make a salad of cucumber, yellow pepper, tomatoes, feta, and dill and eat it outside on the front stoop. The people next door are putting on a patio and the sounds of the wet saw and bobcat fill the air. Not so peaceful.
7. I love how badly he wants me to succeed. Everyone should have someone who believes in them. I'd like to believe in myself a little bit more.
8. There's a fundraiser for the school at Culver's which means I don't have to make dinner. I eat a cheeseburger with a knife and fork while staring at the backs of the heads of some neighbors. I think they might think I'm rude, disinterested. But I am in this season of sheltering. Of holding a lot in, keeping things close, needing the quiet and the warmth of my own presence. This isn't a bad thing, I don't think.
9. So many things I want to make.
10. I eat the last bit of Reese's ice cream and think about how tired I am. It's always at this time of night that I want to name the sources of my fatigue. The list feels long.
Ten.Eighty
1. I sleep in late. He's cuddled up close. I missed this too.
2. Cereal and milk for them. I drink a very watered down cappuccino, make their lunches very slowly.
3. Someone is already up and has forgotten to do his math sheet. I did not miss this.
4. I've decided that today is a day for doing all the things that require very little thinking. Wash the car. Get the groceries. Fold the laundry. Write my morning pages.
5. I also eat a small bowl of Reese's peanut butter ice cream while watching Wolf Hall.
6. There is a book somewhere in there.
7. He keeps asking me what's wrong. There is so much that is...not wrong, just unclear. And it's the lack of clarity that's pressing upon me.
8. Leftover chili for dinner. I make cornbread muffins.
9. Navy blue nail polish.
10. I think of the tiny brass crosses sitting in my drawer and I am pulled back to the screened in porch of Brae Cove, digging through Ann's box of beads and shells and pins; thumbing through torn pages and papers and spent postcards; talking about king cake with the woman from Metairie who works jazz fest every year before heading north for the summer. I think of the tiny brass crosses and so much more.
Ten.Seventy-Nine
1. 2:30 AM.
2. She's making me coffee in the french press for my ride into Boston. Plus a side of coffee cake. Grateful for friends who rise with you and feed you and caffeinate you.
3. The fog is thick and it's dark and the "low tire pressure" signal is on. It's the sum of all my driving fears—minus the bridge. I stuff the coffee cake into my mouth.
4. I am only driving 45 miles per hour.
5. I sleep on the plane. When I wake up I see the colors of the sunrise coming through the window: fluorescent orange and yellow.
6. I am not sure what I am feeling.
7. I clean and clean and clean then eat some leftovers and fall asleep.
8. Dinner is chili. I am sleep-eating.
9. I did miss this though. The way the clouds look at sunset. The way the trees wave to me.
10. I think back to the dock and the loons. The hands I saw doing all the making. The warmth of the wood and the wooden closures on the windows. All the mushrooms and the white birches.
Ten.Seventy-Eight
1. Boarding group A-50
2. I lay in bed just a little while longer. The fog is so thick and milky this morning.
3. I get dressed and take my journal out to the dock and sit in the fog. The water is so still and flat, reflecting the trees that line the water's edge.
4. I'm not ready to go.
5. Back in my room I watch another episode of Bleak House.
6. Camille, Giavanni, and Michelle sit at my breakfast table and we talk big dreams and nurturing children's creativity and inspiration.
7. I'm not ready to go back home yet.
8. How will I carry all of this with me?
9. We sit and eat a salad with peas and prosciutto and chicken and a homemade Dijon dressing. I love that I get to end my trip here, in her home, drinking tea on her sofa and catching up on life.
10. I should really go to sleep.
Ten.Seventy-Seven
1. I'm rather in love with the turquoise color of this weathered table. I will miss writing with this view.
2. I get it. I get why people come here again and again and again.
3. I woke up to rain again and it is the most soothing sound.
4. I didn't realize how much I would be moved by the ripples in the water, watching it run against the rocks and bubble up under the docks. It's medicine.
5. So many faces and so many names. This morning my headache keeps me from being able to hold very much.
6. She drives me to the cabin where Em is, and though Em is not there, she finds some peppermint oil and tenderly rubs it into the nape of my neck, my temples, over my eyebrows.
7. I am always afraid that I am not doing this right.
8. All day people I don't know come up to me and tell me all the beautiful things they've heard about my workshop. You would think that would have soothed my worries.
9. She lets me dig through her box of beads and bits to take home to my daughter. I grab almost all of the brass crosses—not for my daughter but for myself. I am not much into iconography or crosses but today I am drawn to them and I so pluck them out, one by one.
10. Giavanni. I need to keep in touch with her. She is truth and she radiates so much power and wisdom. Tonight she leads us into some music and movement and I am doing things I've never done before. What a weekend of firsts.
Ten.Seventy-Six
1. I wake up several times throughout the night because I can't differentiate the noises.
2. This time I wake up to the sound of rain.
3. The light in the screened in porch is...I can't describe it. But I sit here at the table and write. The sun is coming up but the clouds are too thick for me to appreciate a proper sunrise and instead I look for strips of pale yellow on water.
4. I walk to breakfast with another cabin mate. She's Scottish and delightful and she's been so helpful.
5. We complain about having to wait until 7 for coffee.
6. I'm so nervous when we start. I'm pretty sure they can hear the shaking in my voice. But this is a kind crowd.
7. I make them listen to The Gate and then write the 10 things. We do the 10 things twice which means that by the end of today I will have written 30 things. I could write so many more.
8. The day is long and I am drained, but in a way that feels good. This is the right kind of tired. The kind of tired you feel from doing the work that feeds your soul.
9. I really wanted to make a spoon today.
10. The loons.
Ten.Seventy-Five
1. 2:30 in the morning. This is dark night.
2. My Uber driver is Miguel and he drives a newer Altima but cigarette lingers. He's nice enough; originally from Colombia, now in Chicago by way of California. He's looking forward to seeing snow.
3. Apparently lots of people take 6 AM flights.
4. I sometimes have to go through those machines at security that scan your body. My groin is always highlighted. They always ask me if I'm wearing a belt. I never am. She pats me down. It occurs to me this morning that maybe there is some bit of copper left in me from my IUD.
5. I get my rental and head to Wellesley to see her. Finally. It's taken so many years. It's like we do this every week. We make plans and talk strategy and life and kids forgetting homework. We talk life.
6. I manage to keep my anxiety in check as I make my way from Wellesey to Holderness. My husband asks me if I'm enjoying the scenery. I haven't noticed—I'm too focused on making sure I don't miss the exit that's 45 miles away. But every now and then there's a break in the trees and I suddenly realize that I'm in these mini mountains.
7. I stop at the corner store and find the last flashlight, a bottle of bug spray, a bag of gummy worms, chips, a can of smoked almonds, bananas, and grapes.
8. I get weirded out when people in real life tell me that they follow me on Instagram.
9. The beauty of this place. The sound of the lake breaking against the rocky shore. The dirt paths, metal canoes stacked on top of one another.
10. I need this. I hope I don't disappoint tomorrow.
Ten.Seventy-Four
1. Up early. Earlier than usual because he's flying north today.
2. The way another 30 minutes makes the morning feel wide.
3. The sky is pastel shades of blue and pink. It's harder to capture the sunrise as the seasons change. So much shifting.
4. Tuesdays with them are what get me through the week.
5. I stop and get a few last minute essentials: travel-sized toiletries, post-it notes, a few fresh t-shirts.
6. I trust that whatever needs to get done today will get done.
7. I'm nervous about getting to the airport on time. My flight is so early and I'm doing this alone and it's interesting to me how this feeling—fear—of being alone is so clearly different from the feeling of solitude I desire.
8. All of this makes me feel childish.
9. I make one-pot beef stroganoff for dinner and make them take showers, give her two french braids, and continue to rewrite my notes. I keep rewriting my notes. I realize that I forgot to buy a flashlight and bug spray.
10. I will get less than 3 hours of sleep tonight.
Ten.Seventy-Three
1. This shade of pale pink rose in the sky.
2. The tomatoes. I don't know what to do with this last bunch. I may need to move the pot to another spot in the yard where the sun will hit it sooner in the day. I forgot about the shift in the light.
3. I have to untangle the hoses and attach spray nozzle before I can wash it off. But first I take a picture, realize that the "y" in You is written backward. Yes. This must have been a child. No, it doesn't really make me feel any better.
4. I am grateful and surprised by the support and shock and anger. I wonder if maybe I made too big a deal about it. But then remember that my writing is about my truth. And the truth was/is that it still bothers me that someone, even a child who is incapable of writing their "y" the correct way, would write something like that on my driveway. I just hope I never have to see something like that again.
5. Once, in middle school we got off the bus to see portions of the sidewalks and windows covered in brown kraft paper. Overnight, someone had vandalized the school. It had been covered in swastikas and racial slurs. This would have been in 1997 or 1998 in the small, but growing, tobacco town of Kernersville, North Carolina.
6. Which makes me think of the young boy in New Hampshire with rope burns around his neck.
7. Which makes me think of the fact that I'll be driving through New Hampshire alone. Which makes me also think about the other articles I've seen lately about racism in the northeast.
8. Which makes me wonder how one is supposed to feel safe.
9. He keeps asking me what's wrong. I say nothing.
10. I play soccer with him as the sun goes down. Try to look at his face instead of the glowing orange sun as it sets behind the berm. Try to focus on this smile and the roundness of his cheeks.
Ten.Seventy-Two
1. I wish I had a better plan for breakfast this morning.
2. Not cranes, but herons. I think.
3. The sun at this time of morning is low and this strange pink-orange.
4. Coffee cake from a box. He tells me that the morning before he saw the deer, both of them. I haven't seen them since before we left for California.
5. California. I think back to the morning the girl with the dark curly hair at Mini Model assumed that we were locals. And it was the way it made me feel—like anything and everything was possible, even my wildest dreams.
6. I need to hold on to this.
7. Peach pie two Sundays in a row. This time I make the lattice with thick ribbons that turn golden brown.
8. I manage to take a 2-hour nap, so deep that I dream nonsensical dreams of football and children and cakes and faces I want to kiss.
9. Twice in two days someone has written "I will kill you" on my driveway. It is most likely some child's prank. She confirms that yesterday someone admitted to doing it. But no one knows who wrote it today. It's hard not to take it personal. If it happens again...
10. Three more mornings until Squam.
Ten.Seventy-One
1. The coolness of the morning still catches me off guard. Every day feels new again. And I guess that's a good thing.
2. I make a batch of plain granola and top it with pecans and dried cranberries and fresh blueberries. Settle on making a large pot of coffee. There are two birthday parties today.
3. The strangeness of familiar faces.
4. I head to the consignment shop and try on 5 pairs of jeans and only one manages to slide comfortably over my thighs. I go back and get 5 more, this time in the next size up. I buy 3 pairs in total.
5. She asks me if everyone where I live now is more normal. I don't really know what she means by this.
6. I gather a few more poetry and writing books. Find a selection in Women Who Run With the Wolves that illustrates one of my points perfectly. There are so many things this book illustrates perfectly.
7. The second party is more tame. I eat some mac and cheese and watch the reporters on MSNBC talk about Irma. Her husband is down there to work on the power lines. I think of Mr. Claude.
8. I'm too full from life today to eat my dinner and just clean and take a long shower instead.
9. Back to 7:30 bed time for the kids.
10. "...the body is a living record of life given, life taken, life hoped for, life healed."
Ten.Sixty-Nine
1. Sometime around 3:30 am my sinuses open up and I get 2 good hours of sleep.
2. I look for the moon through the bathroom curtains but the sky is too overcast to see it.
3. I squeeze into this one pair of jeans, the most comfortable pair of jeans I have, and it's hard to quiet the disappointment. I tell myself that my body is just changing and that this kind of changing is okay.
4. I roll the oil blend under my nose and around my chest and throat and remember the old days of vapo-rub. How it was the cure of so many things. Which makes me think of my grandmother who would make us go to sleep with plastic bags on our feet to sweat out the sickness.
5. I love seeing her face on my phone. The return of the school year means the return of our almost weekly chats. I miss my best friend.
6. More mucinex and nose spray and wishing I had a mother close by to take care of me.
7. Soup for lunch.
8. There's a big pile of dirt in the middle of the cul-de-sac.
9. I read her email aloud to him and tell him that Teri told me to always accept the gifts. And don't feel guilty about it. Just be grateful. I said this year I wanted to go to the desert.
10. "What needs to be counted on to have a voice? Courage. Anger. Love. Something to say; someone to speak to; someone to listen."
Ten.Sixty-Eight
1. When the moon is full it illuminates the bathroom and this morning it is so dark and the moon is so brighf.
2. Maybe it's because it's sitting so close to the hill that it looks so big. But from the kitchen, the moon looks close enough for me to pluck it out of the sky with my fingertips. I look east and see the coming of dawn. I spend twenty minutes watching the moon sink and the sun rise.
3. Bacon and frozen waffles and a small pot of coffee. I feel a cold coming on.
4. I'm rereading The Memoir Project by Marion Roach and she reminds me that my morning pages are not the real work. That the real work comes from dedicated time with my words, telling the stories.
5. Seven days until I leave for Boston and then make my way to New Hampshire. I am trying to envision myself making this journey with more peace and less anxiety.
6. I take off the jeans that feel too tight and put on my pajama pants, bring a mason jar of warm water with lemon and honey to ease my throat, and curl up under the covers.
7. I can't be sick.
8. I look out to the clouds and notice how the bottoms are gray and the tops are bright from the light of the sun. My arms are pressed against the glass and my eyes begin to swell with tears and I know that feeling this is what makes life worth living.
9. I can't be sick.
10. This is the first bath I've ever taken in this house. The tub is deep and the warmth of the water is making me sweat. I watch my arms float in the water and the dirt of the day rise up from my body and cling to the sides of the tub.
Ten.Sixty-Seven
1. I can tell the seasons are changing. The low light and the coolness outside of the sheets. I let myself lay for just a little longer while I run through the refrigerator contents in my head.
2. I step out onto the back stoop and the cool air blows against my bare leg and even though I really just came down to preheat the oven I am transfixed by the shifting location of the sunrise.
3. Cinnamon and sugar croissants.
4. The gladiolas are drying out and I don't want to replace them just yet. Sometimes I'm not good at letting things go.
5. I've listened to this episode with Marie Howe six or seven times now and it never loses its enchantment. I love the tone of her voice and the way she speaks of family. And that poem about Mary Magdalene makes me hold my breath every time.
6. These morning with them. How they reconstitute my spirit. I've missed these women and their hearts and am so grateful for our reunification this season.
7. All of the laundry. I make myself some tea and turn on Bleak House. This sometime doesn't feel like enough.
8. Taco Tuesday. Beef. Homemade tortilla chips.
9. I'm getting back into the habit of lighting candles at dinner again. I like the little flickers of light and the way it makes this very ordinary day a little more beautiful.
10. Tomorrow makes 7 days until New Hampshire.
Ten.Sixty-Six
1. First one up. The light this morning is so orange. I'm fascinated.
2. Bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, coffee, orange juice. This Monday feels like Sunday.
3. I follow the orange light around the house. It starts in the office and then moves into the corner at the base of the stairs before floating up the wall and then disappearing behind the cloud cover.
4. The warmth of this floor.
5. We've decided that today we'll just lay in bed and watch wine documentaries all day: A Year in Burgundy, Somm: Into the Bottle, A Year in Port.
6. "History gives wine heart and soul."
7. We drink a few glasses of Savenniers while we watch.
8. I'm daydreaming about working a harvest when we move to California. About getting my feet wet with grapes. I'll learn how to prune leaves or maybe just bend them down to an elevated wire like Lalou does with her vines. And French. I'm going to learn French.
9. Leftovers for dinner. Ribs and baked potatoes and green beans.
10. I stand at the window and watch the limbs sway. The sun is pulsating, haunting. I don't even know why I'm so fascinated with the light today. Maybe it was just that the day was so deliciously slow and quiet that this one thing, the pink-orange sun and it's oddly colored light, made me feel like a child again.
Ten.Sixty-Five
1. The morning light is bright. They've all been awake for some time.
2. I make myself a bowl of lucky charms for breakfast. The level of joy this gives me is almost silly. But sometimes we need things like this to bring us back down again.
3. We head out to the farmer's market for two things: fruit for a pie and some local honey. We settle on these big peaches the color of sunset and I grab a jar with a tiny bit of comb inside it to use in my tea.
4. I begin to prep the chickens. First I line the pans with parchment paper and then add the racks. Then I cut out the backs, lay them flat onto the racks and cover them in a generous amount of kosher salt before I stick them into the fridge. While I'm doing that he chops the herbs for the butter rub and then peels and slices the peaches. I take off the latex gloves and wash my hands and make the lattice for the pie while he polishes the wine glasses. We are quiet and methodical.
5. There's enough time for me to play soccer in the yard with him again and we take a short scooter ride around the neighborhood. I am sweaty and tired but I'm trying to make time for this.
6. We begin with water and Gouguenhiem Sparkling Malbec. Dinner is the Pinot Noir. After dinner we drink some late harvest Riesling.
7. We speak the ways friends who've known one another for a long time speak. It's conversations full of ease and laughter and sometimes hard stuff. It's just nice when you speak the same heart language.
8. He's had way too many Manhattans to wake up at a reasonable time tomorrow morning.
9. It's almost 11 when they leave. I am tired, full of roasted chicken and peach pie and probably too much wine.
10. I pray that the kids sleep in tomorrow. And that they won't be mad about having to eat lucky charms again for breakfast.
Ten.Sixty-Four
1. I wake up after 8.
2. I think they ate the rest of the banana bread for breakfast. I make myself a cappuccino and clean up the dishes from the night before. I'm running out of pages in my journal.
3. On 5th Street I swerve to avoid the hawk. It's carrying a fat mouse.
4. The familiarity of these streets. Yet so much is changing.
5. I'm just going through the motions of getting it all done today.
6. I snip them some sage and rosemary and oregano to take home.
7. Blue Melosa.
8. Grateful I didn't have to make dinner today. He tells me that when I'm in a funk it comes out in my food. He's right.
9. I didn't make her cherry handpies this morning or this afternoon because I had to do the grocery shopping and then the cleaning and then play soccer with him again because I said I would be done with everything by 4:45.
10. I think of the woman bagging my groceries and how she talked of her two boys, one in Austin and one in St. Louis. How much she misses them. How, even though the plan was for them to be independent and gone, it still makes her ache in a way she hadn't imagined. I know I will ache in the same way sometime in the future. I'll maker her the handpies tomorrow.
Ten.Sixty-Three
1. The air this morning. And the sky—how it had layers of lavender in it.
2. I show a picture of my face today. Because I too need to work on being seen. I think of all the ways in which I hide.
3. He helps me secure my rental car. I tell him that sometimes I still feel like a child.
4. I ride with him to the city to pick up some wine for work. The 40-something miles there and back are mostly quiet. It's not that o have nothing to say, it's just that sometimes there's too much.
5. I make the chicken noodle soup early. Sweat the onions in a little bit of olive oil and butter, add the garlic, then toss in the celery and carrots. Snip a few sprigs from the rosemary bush and strip some oregano, toss those into the pot. Everything is so fragrant.
6. The best thing about going down to one cup of coffee a day is that I no longer have that hard crash in the afternoon. I tell him that it's nice to be able to still do a little work, to not feel like I can't stand on my own feet. Overall, my mind does feel as though it moves more slowly. I think I can be okay with that.
7. We shoot some hoops and play a little soccer in the backyard. I thank him for playing with me. This little one. He tells me he sometimes gets lonely because he doesn't have as many play dates as his older siblings.
8. Her friend joins us for dinner. It's so odd to see the sixth chair occupied but she is good company.
9. My face feels heavy. Allergies.
10. We sit them, and some others I have yet to meet, around the fire pit. We missed the sunset but there's still this creamsicle-colored glow coming from behind the bern.
Ten.Sixty-Two
1. The tomatoes are stalling. I think the night time temps are getting too cool.
2. Still in my pajamas.
3. This morning feels softer than the others.
4. I sit down and get over myself and just write it out. Sometimes it's just so much easier to just say the thing and get it out.
5. I pick a Soave for lunch.
6. It's almost too cold to sit on the patio. But there's a pergola and it's covered in vines and I think that maybe he brought me here because he was trying to feed me.
7. Stillness.
8. I like it when they get in the car and there are smiles. The energy is just so different and it's easier to breathe. But I'm still glad it's Thursday and that this week is almost over.
9. I'm still not convinced.
10. All this newness.